


Baldi's Basics in Hearing Loss

by keylore



Category: Baldi's Basics (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Gen, ear trauma, hearing loss, loss of hearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 04:58:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19125067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keylore/pseuds/keylore
Summary: Baldi had never been fond of the tapes.The newest one is the last one he'll ever hear.





	Baldi's Basics in Hearing Loss

**Author's Note:**

> Being Baldi is suffering.

High-pitched ringing that only Baldi’s sensitive hearing was able to pick up.

Someone was playing a tape again.

There was no doubt some kid was preparing a prank or trying to sneak into a faculty room, thus prompting them to play it so Baldi wouldn’t be able to tell the culprit through the sea of distracting noise.

If Baldi closed his eyes and focused, really focused on just listening, he’d be able to tell the direction the sound was coming from amidst the torrent of annoying ringing and go turn it off, but...

...He couldn’t just get up and walk out in the middle of a math exam. It was important. What if someone tried to cheat while he was away, and he wouldn’t be able to catch it because his hearing was tampered with? That wouldn’t be acceptable, oh, no, not at all.

So he would have to sit there, grit his teeth, and bear it until every last student had turned in their exam, and—

…

Huh. There was a change in the pitch, climbing a little higher, wrapping around sounds to turn them into porridge he couldn’t begin to comprehend. This was... he clamped his hands over his ears, this was new. Was someone experimenting with a new tape? He hoped not. Baldi wasn’t a fan of any of the effects the recordings tended to assault his delicate ears with, especially if they were something he wasn’t prepared for.

_Crack_.

Another shift in the pitch sent a flash of startling, wet-sounding crackling through his ears, leaving dull, prickling pain in its wake.

...That wasn’t good.

_Crack_. The onslaught of sound trickled down into static, like a television unable to receive a signal. _Crack_. The static was fading away with a low whine.

_Crack_.

Nothing.

Baldi grit his teeth harder, lowering his hands, to make sure he really— ah, he really couldn’t hear a thing. There was nothing. No trace of the recording, no trace of the static, no... well, anything. He’d been rendered deaf. Again. Oh, greaaat. He’d dealt with tapes that robbed him of his hearing before. Baldi considered them the biggest annoyance of them all, and he was lucky he didn’t get to encounter them that often.

He could’ve sat back, stayed calm and waited for the recording to finish, but the pain thrumming in his ears was troubling him. The tapes had never outright caused him pain before; would it get worse? There was potential for something bad to happen if the tape went on with its erratic changes, and that unnerved him: he wouldn’t be able to hear it happen.

Baldi kept on a neutral face. ‘Relax, Baldimore. You can do this,’ he thought to himself. There was no need to attract anyone’s attention to his situation. He could handle it. Maybe the tape was already done playing. Maybe his hearing was just taking its sweet time returning to him, that could be it, he would—

He wasn’t prepared for the sharp rise in the pitch.

Sound came crashing back to him with such force he’d never experienced before, tearing through his sensitive hearing like someone had plunged a sharp instrument into his ears to stab at the auditory system. The pure, white hot pain that came with it ripped an inhuman howl out of him. He scrunched his eyes shut tight. All the noise was amplified beyond his toleration level, and it was like he could physically feel each and every sound in his head. It was as if someone was dragging nails down the very inside of his skull, scraping at the bone. The vibrations - so itchy- were lodged away so far in the canals, it was maddening. _Why couldn’t everything just... just be quiet_ …! The scratching of the pencils against paper, the footsteps out in the halls, his own blood rushing through his veins... _he couldn’t— he couldn’t bear it_...!

A new sound was added to the mixture. Like two pieces of metal grinding against each other: someone in the class was speaking.

Baldi opened his eyes, his vision blurry from the pain-induced tears. He looked up to see his class staring back at him, no doubt startled by his sudden scream. He tried blinking away the tears, but it was futile. More and more kept on coming, warping his students into a mass of smudged figures. 

There was that metal-on-metal noise again; it came from the girl in the front row. Baldi couldn’t tell what she was saying, and at the moment he didn’t want to know. All he wanted was for her to quiet down. He didn’t say his wish out loud, though – it wasn’t her fault he couldn’t hear her properly.

Then came another sound, and another, and another, as some of the students were getting up, approaching him. Every sound delivered an additional stab of pain at his ears, wrenching a sob from him. He wanted to tell them to sit down and continue the exam. Baldi opened his mouth, and immediately shut it after the first syllable – his voice was too grating to tolerate. Why’d he have to sound like that? He bolted up from his chair, backing away from the children who stopped before his desk. It was just a few steps before Baldi’s back hit the wall. 

“D-don’t speak, don’t make a sound,” Baldi begged, holding his hands out in front of him. Each word dug the nails in his skull further into the bone.

Someone shouted something, but to Baldi the volume was so intense it was akin to having a knife twisted around in his head.

“A-ah…!”

Unimaginable pain squeezed at his brain, pounding and stomping his thoughts into panicked smush. There was no rationality left in him, no room for concern about how startling this must be for his class. All of his instincts were screaming at him to go turn off that tape, and he was already following that order. Baldi stumbled across the classroom with no sense of balance before lunging for the door handle. He wrenched the door open and wobbled out into the halls on unstable legs. 

_That sound, where was it coming from, where, where’d it_ …! Baldi was only vaguely aware of someone bolting out of the classroom, with each quick step sounding like a hammer bashing away at the floor to him. The hammering of the steps vanished down the hall. All of his attention was focused on finding the source of his suffering, but he couldn’t… _he couldn’t locate it_ …! The recording surrounded him from every direction, giving him no clue of where it was coming from. Baldi supported himself against a wall, his vision swimming from pain and nausea. There were too many directions to choose from, he could pick just one and hope for the best, please--

Baldi’s legs gave out under him, his balance finally succumbing to the effects of the tape. No, no, no, _not now_ …! He crumpled onto the floor, his legs refusing to let him back on his feet. He managed to drag himself forward with his arms once, twice, and--

There was a final shift in the tape. 

The pain he’d felt up to this point was like a raging flood. 

Now, it was like a dam failure.

All of Baldi’s thoughts and movement halted under the crushing pain, his brain incapable of processing the severity of the sensation. He could only lay there, paralyzed, pressure growing in his ears. The assaulting noise leapt higher and higher, his pulse racing like he was seconds away from a heart attack. There was creaking and crackling deep inside his head as the infernal pain and sound dug its claws further into his canals. It coiled around the sensitive organs, tighter and tighter, until he heard a loud ‘pop’ in his ears. Silence followed.

He couldn’t hear a thing.

_Something had ruptured_. Warm liquid leaked from his ears, running down the sides of his head in thin streaks. The pressure and rush of fluids in his canals felt wrong. Pure shock kept him still, kept the pain at bay. It took a moment before he reached up with a trembling hand to touch the hot fluid. 

Baldi paused. He brought the hand up to his face, his face and head blank as he stared at what was coating his fingers. Then it finally registered to him what he was looking at.

_Blood_.

Shock was giving way to realization.

Baldi began screaming.

It was a scream born out of anguish and fear, sounding closer to a wounded animal than a human being. He buried his face in his hands, still screaming, the sound so loud and distorted that it sent the ears of everyone in the building ringing, temporarily tinting their visions with red. He had no idea what he was doing to the others; he couldn’t hear himself. Baldi had no awareness of his volume, he simply kept on screaming. It was a violent release of the emotions and pain blossoming in his head, a denial of what was going to be his new reality. Blood was soaking his clothing. Tears stung his eyes. The loud scream went on, interrupted only by the occasional stuttering intake of breath. He screamed until his throat went raw, too drained to continue. The scream lost its intensity little by little until there was nothing left but weak sobs.

“...A-ah...”

Baldi dug his palms into his eyes, giving them a good rub before lowering his hands.

“...”

He felt stares on him.

He looked up.

Children surrounded him, forming a ring around the suffering teacher. They looked worried, exchanging whispers with each other, with some of them rubbing their aching ears. Ah… Baldi felt a pang in his heart; he’d hurt them with his screaming. He sat up, his vision momentarily swimming from the effort. Baldi stared at the kids, still bleeding, the blood sticking his shirt to him in an uncomfortable way. His throat burned. There was a kid in the crowd who held a tape player, shoulders shaking from sobs, refusing to meet Baldi’s eyes. Baldi’s pounding headache didn’t let him think further about the significance of the child.

Baldi was startled by hands grabbing onto his shoulders.

He turned his head to lock eyes with the Principal. Uncharacteristic worry was etched into the features of the man who always looked so calm, now shaking Baldi by the shoulders, shouting at him. At least, Baldi assumed the Principal was shouting – he was staring at his mouth, seeing it move, but unable to hear a word.

It… it didn’t feel right to see the Principal in this state. He watched the Principal take a handkerchief out of his pocket. Baldi felt the pressure of the Principal’s trembling hand against the side of his head, wiping the blood as carefully as possible.

_It’s alright, I’m fine, please don’t worry about me_. That’s what he tried to tell the Principal.

He didn’t know how he sounded – he was all too aware of the sensation of his jaw moving, his tongue like lead. He had no idea of the volume, the flow of the sentences.

But based on the heartbreaking expression on the Principal’s face, it didn’t sound good at all.

The Principal’s grip on his shoulder tightened. The Principal said something short to him based on the movements of his mouth, but Baldi had no idea what it was.

His thoughts were so loud in the stifling silence of his head.

_Baldi Baldimore had gone deaf._


End file.
